In 1989 John Buckley and Martin Holland were working on what can be described as a first-person adventure game with a detailed character selection front end, and a pseudo-3D map section.

The main game itself was very much in the style of Space Harrier and Outrun but with more detail in the graphics for a C64 game. This may have been for particular parts of the game, but overall it was more of a RPG/Adventure game.

The game was very advanced, and featured some authentic animations and sequences. It was basically a stunner. There were male and female characters which were created from a series of stripes, which gelled together. Only Martin Holland could pull off such a feet, and he did. The characters were very Elvish and from what I recall quite brown/golden in terms of shading. Pretty much they were similiar in style to Martin’s character profiles in Gauntlet 3. John Buckley had managed to get trees and rocks, and little towers moving around the screen in 3D – a bit roughly, but looking good for them days!

Graphically, according to John, this was the best work that Martin ever did on a C64.

Vale Of Shadows wasn’t completed or released because the company couldn’t pay its workers. The company went into liquidation and was immediately reformed. Though sadly after this, all the artists had left and the game got shelved from then on.

John does not have anything of the game any longer sadly… and Martin was the only person who did. Sadly, Martin passed away recently and his work will remain unseen.

Originally a video was sent of the work he did to GTW, but the video got lost, and Martin passed away briefly before resending another copy of the work. It is not known if anyone else has the work which was done. The footage I remember had a castle like image with an animating hawk which flew above. This might have been part of the game’s introduction sequence. There was also some character shots and the loading screen to Chocablock Charlie which was unused. I have been kicking myself ever since for losing the video 🙁

In 2010, Paul Drury produced a Desert Island Disks feature with Neil Thompson who mentioned his involvement in the C64/PC versions of the game…

“Vale of Shadows , for the C64 and PC, was a kind of Elven fantasy, where you created a character and went on quests. I spent months designing the Elves and the system whereby you could change their appearance but it just never went anywhere.”

Here is also a photo which was printed in Retro Gamer, which shows Martin in the background laughing (And maybe even working on Vale of Shadows in the background?), along with John Buckley sitting alongside Neil (Sat back in the chair with long hair).

Click picture for larger view.

We are now trying to find out if by chance Neil kept anything of the game, or to find out that little bit more about the game. It’s very unlikely that we will find anything now of the game, but we’ll always be hopeful. Neil specifically worked on the PC version, and not the C64 version. Both PC and C64 versions were being done simultaneously (The PC version being coded by Doug Anderson). We have asked Neil if he kept any documents or bits from them days.

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“Vale of shadows was a working title, it was also know as Dragon Vale but I never saw any dragons!. It was an adventure type game with animating scene’s and a pseudo 3d-map section.

Martin’s graphics were very nice, especially the faces. I had him drawing 16 faces, each face was split horizontally into 4 sections. Hair, eyes, nose and mouth, and chin and neck. I remember the tavern screen especially. I told him I wanted each section to fit graphically to any of the other sections and I wanted both male and females splitting into four horizontal sections, and ten different strips for each section and I wanted them all to match up so I could mix and match them. He told me in not so many words it couldn’t be done, and then went away and did it.

And it worked. It worked so well that as I generated the faces I would give them a name suggested by their graphical appearance.

His animated scene graphics were also excellent probably the best graphics I have seen him do. However the project would never see the light of day. Icon design was down on its knees people weren’t getting paid. Finally they went into liquidation, they reformed immediately employing Doug Anderson (former director of A&F), Pete Andrew and myself.

We were the programmers for the Amiga,ST and C64 versions of Vale of shadows. For some reason they didn’t keep on any artists so after we had got most of what we was owed Pete and I left and that was that. Unfortunately I have no disks, code or graphics for Vale of shadows, I’m not sure if Martin had any or not.”

Then later in 2012:

“It was as Neil said. But the C64 was most advanced…..I remember a scene inside an Inn where fixed annimation were going on and others when you clicked on them. You could also click on the persons in the Inn and there profile would come up and you could interact with them.

Sadly I have nothing other than memories. And with Martins untimely death I think this is lost forever. 🙁

I’m not sure If Doug had anthing on the PC version and the ST/Amiga version was being programmed by Pete Andrew (He’s in my friends list) the PC graphics would of been used for both these as well……”

Neil Thompson recollects about the game:

“I’m sorry, as far as I’m aware nothing survives from that game. I remember the work that I did surprisingly well as it was predominantly an appearance system for a series of elven races, but as far as the story goes, I’d be surprised if it had been thought out to any great length.

Remember, this was over 25 years ago and the way in which games were being written back then was very different to today. As I recall there was very little, if any, playable code other than the character select.

I’ll put the word out to the ex Icon / Lothlorien guys I’m still in touch with and see what comes up; but I wouldn’t hold out much hope, I’m afraid.”